“You don’t get to be an asshole to me because you feel like shit,” he bites out. “You messed up.”
“I know that!”
“And you wish there was something you could do about it. But there isn’t.”
That knocks the air from my lungs.
I stumble backward, thighs hitting the bed. My purse lies tossed across the covers where I left it earlier, spilling glittery scraps of my so-called magickal life. My pulse pounds in my ears, and my hands shake as I dig into it, the ritual tools spilling out onto the sheets.
If there’s nothing I can do for Nessa, then I’ll take action for me. I’ll do something to prove the wheel is still turning, that I’m not powerless, that all my affirmations and scripting weren’t just empty words that broke a girl.
I drag out rose quartz, a crumpled affirmation card, and a candle Romy gave me that she said was imbuedwith the fire energy of Wands. I place them on the sheet, chasing my own version of control like it might stitch the world back together.
My chest aches with the image of Nessa clawing her throat, her voice splintering like glass. My fault. My words. My empty love-and-light bullshit.
I arrange the candle, the card, and the rose quartz into a triangle on the silk sheets, the crystal gleaming at the top point. I step back to admire the symmetry as if neat angles might disguise the shame tangled around my heart.
“I wish my phone wasn’t dead.” I tilt my chin. “This would be cute on my feed.”
Declan, arms folded across his chest, is a dark shadow in my periphery. “Is that really the priority right now?”
Of course it isn’t. Of course I’m being ridiculous. But better ridiculous than shattered. Better cute angles and crystals than the sound of Nessa’s voice tearing apart still ringing in my ears. If immaturity is all I’ve got to keep from unraveling, then fine—I’ll take it.
I blink at him, widening my eyes just a little. “What? I’m making a witchy triangle. It’s literally cute. My followers would love it.”
He watches me for a beat that lasts too long. “You doing this on purpose?”
My smile is soft, practiced. “Doing what?”
“The passive thing,” he says. “Pushing. Baiting me. You want me to turn my back on you, walk away so you can say everyone does. So you can have your martyr story, feel justified, be angry with somebody else instead of with yourself.”
A hot knot of grief twists in my chest as I force outa laugh. “That’s what you think? You’re reading way too much into this. I’m just…trying to make this spell look nice. Magick is real here, so I’m…you know…channeling it.”
My pulse hammers in my throat. It’s obscene how much I want him to answer by walking away.
He studies me for another long, unbearable second. Then he shakes his head. “I’m not the prop in whatever punishment you’ve decided you deserve.”
“Declan, I really don’t know—”
“Stop it, Amanda! Just…stop.” He exhales, tired. “Fine. You want me to go, I’ll go. I’ll give you space to sort this out.”
He meets my gaze, steady, and his lips part like he’s about to say something that will land with clean, devastating bluntness. I swallow, bracing for the judgment or the lecture I want him to give me. Because he’s right. I want to turn my anger away from myself and point it somewhere safe. Point it at him.
Instead, he only shakes his head again. “Try not to light the bed on fire.”
And when he finally turns, slipping through the flap of the tent, it feels less like victory and more like confirmation that I’ve broken something I don’t know how to fix.
The silence he leaves behind is unbearable. My chest aches with it, my skin tingling like it can’t hold me in. But that’s fine. Everything isfine. I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone. I can realign myself, reconnect with my inner power, rebuild my armor.
I narrow my eyes, strike a match with a precise flick of my wrist, and light the candle. The flame wavers,small and steady, mocking in its control. I lift the rose quartz above it, smoke curling up around the edges of the stone.
My chest is tight, my throat raw, but I force the words out anyway, the ones I’ve recited into mirrors and captions like they were precious. “I am aligned with purpose,” I whisper, voice splintering on the edges. “I radiate power.”
The flame beneath the crystal flickers.
“I am the fire. I am the flame. I am the light that cannot be dimmed.”
The words taste false, but I cling to them anyway, repeat them louder as if volume alone might make them true. I see Nessa’s wide eyes, hear the way her voice shredded apart, feel the sting of Declan’s absence, and shove it all down under the chant.
